Ads in ChatGPT don't buy a spot inside the answer

WHAT HAPPENED

ChatGPT Ads expands to 26 more countries, reaching 89

OpenAI expanded ChatGPT Ads to 26 more countries, bringing the total to 89. Over 100,000 advertisers have already run campaigns in just over eight months. Ads only appear on the Free and Go plans.

THE NUMBER

100,000

Over 100,000 advertisers have already run campaigns in ChatGPT

In just over eight months since launch, according to OpenAI.

THE REAL PROBLEM IN COMPANIES

What I see: they decide media spend without knowing if AI already cites the brand

1. 01They talk about ad budget before knowing whether AI cites the company in its answers.
2. 02Content is written for people and can be unreadable for AI bots.
3. 03Nobody separates bot crawls, real questions, and clicks that come from citations.

I ALREADY SOLVED THIS

I redid the annual report of one of Brazil's biggest cosmetics companies

1. 01Rebuilt so ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity can read and cite it, with my own measurement.
2. 02In 15 days: 1,427 reads by AI bots from 8 engines, and 553 searches for real questions.
3. 0360 people reached the site by clicking an AI citation, measured by my own log collector.

MY TAKE

Measure instead of assuming.

OpenAI says ads don't influence the answer. In practice, showing up inside it depends on content AI can read and cite. Measure your citation first. Then decide how much to spend on media, with numbers instead of guesses.